University of Tennessee, Knoxville Chancellor Donde Plowman announced in a memo on Friday that three international students and one university employee are at risk of deportation after being identified by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in a criminal records check.
“Yesterday afternoon and today, the Center for Global Engagement found that three of our students and one former student working on campus with temporary employment authorization have had their … status changed,” Plowman wrote. “This means the students and former student are no longer legally eligible to be enrolled or employed and are at risk for deportation.”
Plowman says the university discovered the status changes during a proactive check of a federal immigration database that keeps track of international students and exchange visitors. They found that one of the students is on probation for a property crime, and another has been charged with a DUI. Plowman says they still don’t know why the other two people were identified in the criminal records check.
The students are nonimmigrant visitors to the U.S. who are given special residency permission while they attend school. This is known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, and is administered by the Department of Homeland Security.
In accordance with the federal regulations that govern the program, the three UT students will immediately become ineligible for enrollment, and the one campus worker will become ineligible for employment.
This comes amid a nationwide wave of international student deportations under the Trump administration. According to the Associated Press, students at Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas and the University of Colorado have quietly had their entry visas revoked without notice over the past two weeks.
Many schools have said that these moves break with precedent by not working with administrators. In her memo, Plowman says that the University will continue to reach out and provide support to international students who have been affected.
“Our international students, faculty, and staff are important members of our community, and we value the contributions they make to the mission of the university,” Plowman wrote.
This is also one of the latest in a series of blanket moves by the Trump administration that has applied pressure on the University of Tennessee’s leadership. This began with a Feb. 14 letter from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which lambasted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses and warned of consequences should UT continue to participate in them. Then, on March 10, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to UT saying that the school was under investigation for Title VI violations relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.
In her April 4 memo, Plowman referred to an atmosphere of “unprecedented uncertainty” for international students on campus. She also linked to a page of immigration guidance resources published by the Office of General Counsel.
“ICE previously considered universities to be ‘protected’ areas, where immigration enforcement activities would generally not be conducted,” the guidance reads.
No identifying information about the students or employee affected has been released.
